Painful nostalgia squeezed my heart. Those beautiful, don’t-give-a-shit chicks. Our same age, but more sophisticated and experienced by eons. Half our time at camp was spent concocting dimwitted ways to hook up with them. Trying to figure out who would pair with whom. How far we’d go when we got our chance. Then they’d approach us out on the trails when the counselors weren’t around, or swim out to our diving platform on the lake with their bikinis, and we’d clam up or get our lips caught in our braces or start stammering some nerd bullshit until they rolled their eyes and swam away. Exotic life forms we’d never understand.

This memory unearthed a fearsome craving. My life for a whiskey.

“I remember,” I said.

She put a charge in her gaze. “I bet you do.”

I noticed for the first time she hadn’t sipped her coffee or taken a bite of a donut. And here I’d had two cups and half the carton. Surely this was a mistake. Oh well, at least my death would be delicious.

“So.…” she said. “How to make a long story not so long?” Her hair shifted when she scratched her scalp and I realized she was wearing a wig. That porcelain skin was painted on, maybe even latex. “Okay, well. I was orphaned, after being adopted. Double fucking whammy, right?”

“Wait. You were adopted, and then orphaned by your adopted parents?”

She nodded. “Shot during a home invasion. Two men in ski masks, classic dickwads. Left me tied up in my room. Probably meant to kill me too, but the cops came and they ran away.”

“Fucking A.” Got to give it to her, she didn’t mess with cute little fibs.

“My adoptive dad survived the shooting and dragged himself to my room to check on me, leaving a trail of blood all the way from his bed.” She traced her first two fingers across the white underside of her arm as a reenactment. “I’ll never forget his ghost-white face when he finally opened the door.” Much like hers was now. “Lifting himself up to reach the knob must have exhausted the last reserves of whatever energy he had left. He looked in on me. Got this pained look on his face seeing me hogtied like that, then collapsed. Landed smack on his side with his face turned toward me. And as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t look away. I watched as his eyes turned to glass, his lips whispering words I couldn’t hear.”

No, her lies could win blue ribbons at the county fair. “Christ, Malia. How old were you?”

“Seven.” Said without hesitation. She had this thing rehearsed.

Still.… “Christ,” I said. Rox was seven now. Another connective thread?